What

=What is being learned? =

It would be easy to fall back onto the 2009 industrialized categories supplied by academic disciplines to respond to this question. But I believe there are more basic considerations. 
 * Spontaneous Learning vs. Taught Material** . Given the opportunity and surrounded by other children and adults, babies learn to walk, talk and feed themselves without being taught. In non-western societies there are many skills and oral traditions that children learn by observation without didactic instruction. But they don't learn what isn't embedded in the local environment.

The [|Hole in the Wall experiment]is an example of what can happen when naive learners are given open access to the internet.


 * Experiential vs. Mediatable Material** . The computer-mediated learning environment adds two-way interactivity to the one-way media - paper, radio and television. This vastly expands the ability of learners and teachers to reach each other over distances larger than a lecture hall. It also lets the learner explore independently through the immense resources of the world's digital data banks. Still there are skills and experiences that cannot be gained without being in the right time, place or company. In the long run, moving information to the learner through a computer will be cheaper than moving the learner to a campus learning situation. We need to what learning only takes place in the face-to-face environment and place a high priority on preserving these more expensive learning opportunities.